


The Windows We've Closed

by fetchmeagiraffe



Series: the sound of miles passed beneath your feet [1]
Category: A Softer World, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-03
Updated: 2012-03-03
Packaged: 2017-11-01 01:27:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fetchmeagiraffe/pseuds/fetchmeagiraffe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Donna, Martha, and life after the Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Windows We've Closed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brightthunder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightthunder/gifts).



_2010_

The BP Station down the road puts in a new flashy LED sign to advertise prices that aren’t actually that low. The first day it cycles through messages too quick to read, and then it switches to blinking ROSE continuously. Every time Donna goes past, she’s hit with an itch at the back of her mind, almost like deja vu. 

She goes in one day. The roses are overpriced and slightly wilted, smell more like petrol than anything else. She doesn’t buy one, and leaves feeling just as dissatisfied as she went in.

-

“Oh, now this is cute!” her mum said. “Donna, isn’t this bag darling?”

“It’s a rucksack, mum, I’m not in school anymore. What would I use it for?”

“Hiking.” She flipped the bag round and opened a few of the zippers. “Look, room for snacks, a little slot for a map, you can clip one of those gips thingies here...”

“GPS, it’s not like ATMOS, you pronounce each letter.” Donna said. She tried on a pair of hot pink sunglasses and winked at her reflection. “Why would I want to go hiking? We’ve these lovely new inventions called cars, I think they’re just brilliant.”

“Pink doesn’t look good with your hair, dear, I’ve always told you so.” Her mum said. “Look, just try it on, for me, yeah? Didn’t you say Shaun’s family likes the outdoors?”

“I like outdoors just fine. I just like it more from inside.” Donna said, because it was easier than saying I don’t know how to talk to Shaun anymore and his family might not be my family for much longer. Her mother just frowned at her, in a look patented to make Donna feel about twelve. “Oh go on then.”

Her mother slipped it on over Donna’s jacket, and tightened the straps. “There. Look at you, you’re set to conquer the moors with a sturdy pack like that.”

Donna felt like the bag was full of ice. Her reflection showed nothing amiss – a ridiculous girl wearing ridiculous glasses with her ridiculous mum behind – but her shoulder blades were crawling. She was itching with the need to get it off. Shaun appeared on the other side of her reflection with a ridiculous hat of his own.

“What’s on your back?” he asked.

“Mum thinks we should go hiking,” Donna said. She slipped the bag off and immediately felt silly. It was just a rucksack, nothing icy or weird about it at all. She dumped it back on the rack and flicked the feather on Shaun’s hat. “Planning an evening of dress up? Robin Hood coming to save the Lady Marian?”

“Sweetheart, I can’t imagine you ever needing saving,” he said.

“That, then, would be the point of role playing,” said Donna, irrationally irritated.

-

“It hasn’t even been a year yet,” Shaun said, and his voice broke. Donna couldn’t even try to meet his eyes, so she fixed her eyes on the masthead of the paperwork instead. “Eight months.”

“Do you really think things will get better? Honestly.” Six weeks since they last ate a meal together. Two months since they went to bed at the same time. Shaun had been surprised to discover Donna was still temping, and she hadn’t ever actually stopped after cashing in that ticket.

“I hoped.”

Donna slid the papers across the table, sticky flags marking all the places his signature was needed. “You can keep the house, I’ll stay with Mum and Grandad again til I find a place.”

-

-

“You’re not going to talk me out of this, I’m sorry, you’re just not.” Martha said. She wedged the phone more firmly between shoulder and ear and opened her bottom desk drawer. “It’s done.”

“You’ll miss it, though,” Jack said. His voice echoed slightly, like he’d put her on speaker. “You’re Doctor Martha Jones, you can’t-”

“Doctor Martha Smith-Jones, if you please.” File folder, file folder, unopened bag of rubber bands, CERN stress ball from the Large Hadron Collider Activation Celebration (and a bigger collection of drunken nerds she’s never seen since), untold multitudes of post it pads, and a list of contract violations that she and Jack had collectively accumulated. Torchwood 3 had turned it into a drinking game and sent it out.

“Doctor Martha Smith-Jones, then. Point being, you’ve got aliens and adventures in your blood now. Literally, if I understand your report on the Pharm correctly,” he said. Clinks in the background like he was setting down a drink – was he on speakerphone in public?

“Just because I’m leaving UNIT doesn’t mean I’m leaving adventures. Mickey and I are going freelance. We’ve got some unique skill sets and know all the right people and are you seriously talking to me on speaker in a pub?” Martha demanded. “That’s going on the list, Gwen’ll have to do a shot when I tell her.”

“What? No! You’re not on speaker, I’m just not within the normal coverage area,” Jack said cagily. “And Gwen doesn’t want anything to do with me right now.”

Martha understood that “outside coverage area” in this case meant “three planets and a time hop” away from Earth. “This 4-5-6 thing really did you in, didn’t it.”

Jack was quiet for a long minute. Without any words, Martha could hear the tinny static that indicated use of an interstellar communication device. The one flaw of the superphone. Below that was the faint sound of glass sliding across wood.

“To starting over,” Jack said.

“Cheers to that,” said Martha. She dragged the trashcan closer and dumped in the whole bottom drawer.

-

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to L. for the beta. Screencaps from [disparue.org](http://disparue.org/caps/television/doctorwho/). The images aren't meant to directly illustrate any scenes from the story, just kind of be companions if you will. *g*


End file.
